An Ohio woman who went on vacation last summer and left her 16-month-old daughter home alone in a playpen for ten days entered a guilty plea to aggravated murder on Thursday.
As part of a plea agreement with Cuyahoga County prosecutors, Kristel Candelario, 32, also entered a guilty plea to child endangerment.
In exchange, the prosecution dropped two murder allegations and one felonious assault charge. When Candelario is sentenced on March 18, she might receive a life sentence.
According to the authorities, in June 2023, Candelario went on vacation to Detroit and Puerto Rico, leaving her daughter Jailyn at home in Cleveland.
She discovered the girl in the playpen was not breathing when she came back ten days later, so she dialed 911. Shortly after arriving, emergency personnel discovered the kid was “extremely dehydrated” and declared her dead.
The Cuyahoga County medical examiner’s office conducted an autopsy and found that the youngster had died from severe dehydration and malnutrition.
